Baptist Briefs

Quarterly GuideStone statements now online. Participants in GuideStone retirement programs can find their new account statements on GuideStone’s participant website, www.MyGuideStone.org. “The new statements will provide enhanced planning information for our parti-cipants,” GuideStone President O.S. Hawkins said. “The shift to electronic delivery provides improved security for our participants. Rather than having sensitive personal financial data sitting in your postal mailbox, you will be able to access it on a secure server. E-delivery also offers a significant cost savings to GuideStone over printing and mailing statements each quarter.” Participants who have been receiving paper statements will continue to receive a printed and mailed statement once annually, at the conclusion of the fourth quarter. This year-end statement will show a report for account activity for the entire year. Participants can opt to receive this year-end statement electronically by registering their preferences at MyGuideStone. Participants who are unable to receive electronically delivered statements and want to continue receiving quarterly statements may request paper statement delivery by contacting GuideStone Customer Relations at (888) 98-GUIDE (984-8433) Monday-Friday, 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. CDT.

Four added to Great Commission Task Force. To provide greater ethnic and geographic diversity, Southern Baptist Convention President Johnny Hunt has added a Hispanic evangelist from Texas and three other members to the Great Commission Task Force. Ruben Hernandez, associate Spanish pastor at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano and a former vocational evangelist, has been named to the task force, along with Larry Grays, an African-American church planter in Atlanta, Ga.; Kathy Ferguson, a women’s ministry speaker from Denver who soon will relocate to Alabama; and John Cope, senior pastor of Keystone Community Fellowship near Philadelphia. 

Criswell College moves toward independence. Members of First Baptist Church in Dallas have voted to end the church’s 40-year ownership of Criswell College. The vote followed a recommendation of First Baptist’s deacons and months of negotiations between leaders of the church and Criswell College. The separation agreement creates a nonprofit corporation with a 50/50 ownership split of radio station KCBI-FM, which will be operated and managed by First Baptist. Criswell College will be a nonvoting member of the corporation. In turn, the agreement stipulates the corporation will make a fixed annual contribution to Criswell College. The school will retain all of its other assets. The agreement also includes options for the church and college to buy out the other’s interest in the station after a set period of time. Criswell College’s new governance would take effect Jan. 1. The changes require approval from the Federal Communications Commission and the school’s accrediting agency, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. Pastor Robert Jeffress, quoting the school’s trustee chairman, called the separation agreement a “win-win-win situation”—a positive move for First Baptist Church, the school and “the kingdom of God.”